[ Canal surrounding 2nd story shopping mall in Venetian Hotel & Casino, Las Vegas]
I'm at the surrealistic Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas for the third Society for New Communications Forum and I'm having a ball. The conference has doubled in size to over 400 since ast year. It is attended by an international array of corporate communications folk. From everything I could make out during brief visits to "how to" workshops led by the knowledgeable David Parmet, Shel Holtz and Giovanni Rodriguez, this is a serious crowd of attendees. They are not here to casually kick the tires of social media. They are here to learn pragmatic information on how they can can use the new interactive tools. Their mission is to bring them back to enterprise environments where they are not always well receive and to educate their companies on how to better to talk with and learn from customers.
It was an easy conference for me. I'm an add on to a panel moderated by Mike Manuel this afternoon. But mostly, I can spend my time talking to old friends. I know most of the speakers here and I think very highly of those who I know.
Jennifer McClure who has been the driving force behind the Society for New Communications. A year ago that was still a dubious claim. This year it is a distinction. Under her passionate steerage, the Society is gained recognition and respect as a source of expertise on every aspect of new media. The organization has grown in recognition and stature and she deserves a large portion of the credit. The quality of presentations of the conference places it high on the A-List of events I plan to attend every year.
I stayed up too late last night talking with old friends. I sat next to the amazing Tom Foremski , last night at a wonderful but overpriced, speaker's dinner. We only live a few miles apart, but somehow or other we always bond at the NewComm Forum as everyone is calling it. I love his combination of passion and wisdom.
I'll be live blogging now and then from the conference today. But I'm going to spean a chunk of my time kicking back and catching up with old pals.
